


A Light In Purgatory

by calicokat



Category: Guilty Gear
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 22:08:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calicokat/pseuds/calicokat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ky Kiske begins to unravel the often-frustrating mystery of Sol Badguy, but how well does Ky really understand of his own motivations?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Light In Purgatory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mikeneko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikeneko/gifts).



> The request referred to in the first scene is an intro line in Guilty Gear XX: "Sukoshi tsukiatte morau zo." ("Accept traveling with me a little while.") Elsewhere I quoted other things and made a few things up. Since the characters are European and American I chose not to use the Japanese phrases for organizations and items (and tried to capture Ishiwatari-sensei's performance for Sol in English, too).
> 
> The story is set after Guilty Gear XX and without taking into consideration Overture, by request, or much of Accent Core Plus, either. I've been busy with classes since that came out in the US and don't have it yet. I generally tried to take into account various aspects of the request and letter: no schmoop or smarm, a little hostility, no ooc uke behavior, etc.
> 
> Although I passionately love the games I haven't been in the GG fandom or read a GG fanfic since 2003, so this is entirely my own take on canon. (Save what I owe the beloved EChang both for making his fantastic FAQs and for humoring all my slash-oriented questions in the past.) I also owe debt of gratitude to my beta (not a fandom individual in general) for anything in the story that appears grammatical. :)
> 
> I was thrilled to get Guilty Gear as my assignment because it's a world I've longed to get back into. Mostly, I hope you enjoy it!

International Police Force chief Ky Kiske could little explain his fury seeing Sol Badguy and a blonde haired companion picking through fruit at one of India's outdoor markets. Rarely, however, _could_ he explain the emotional reactions Sol stoked in him. Standing amidst the bright colors of the bazaar, busy with women in their elaborate jewelry with bindi on their foreheads and dashing Indian men with dark hair and quick smiles, residents of foreign descent and foreign nationals alike, Ky, par usual, had to swallow his impulse to draw on Sol and only glared instead.

Ky had just resolved himself to keep walking when the Corrupted Flame's companion caught sight of him and recognized him right away. The other blonde, the Englishman Axl Low, waved cheerfully at Ky as he cocked his head toward his companion.

"Boss. There's an angry fashion model…"

"What?" Sol grunted, stepping back from the stall and turning around. "Oh. The kid."

Ky somehow doubted Sol had failed to notice him in the first place. His temper flared with less provocation than it customarily took.

"Isn't it time you stopped calling me that?"

Sol's brow furrowed beneath his headband.

"Nnh?"

"'Kid,'" Ky elucidated. "I was a kid when I met you. I'm not arguing that. I grew up."

Sol only shrugged, ever unimpressed. He regarded Ky like a cat lover regarded a puppy – with understanding but distaste.

"Y' ain't grown up yet."

"Don't bullshit me, Sol. I'm not in the mood. I've read your file and read it again. You were twenty-two when you joined the order. You're only six years older than me!" Ky could hear himself speaking, but he had no idea why today, of all days, he'd decided to push it.

"Was I…?" the Corrupted Flame drawled. "Guess so. Guess I was."

Faced with Sol's complete indifference, it now occurred to Ky what affront the bounty hunter had committed against him.

"When we met when the Post-War Administration Bureau and I-no made trouble, I asked you to travel with me. Instead, you brought Axl along with you." Ky wasn't willing to believe he was more troublesome than the chatterbox Englishman – a man who, right then, was pretending to closely examine a mango.

Sol scoffed, as close to a laugh as he came with any regularity.

"I didn't bring him anywhere." He said glanced at Axl with narrowed eyes. "Y' think I asked him to hang around and run his mouth?"

The little-familiar sensation of defeat welled up within the young leader. "Sol…" Whatever Sol said, obviously—

Axl Low perked up at that moment, tossing the vendor a coin and taking a bite from the soft yellow fruit. He grinned Ky's way, although even his illimitable cheer failed to impact Ky for the better.

"It's true. Boss is always saying 'Shut up' and 'Don't you have a time-slip to fall into?'"

Ky stared.

A cold realization rippled up Ky's spine and a sick, chilly weight sank in his stomach. What youth had blinded him to appeared in front of him with startling clarity. For all his infuriation when Sol refused to acknowledge him as a legitimate opponent and snubbed his demands to be recognized as a peer, Sol's lethargy had never been an act, and Ky could have so simply made himself Sol's companion by inviting himself into Sol's life.

Even though he recognized this, Ky knew that he never could be satisfied in Axl's position. The desire that fueled the grudge that burned inside Kiske wouldn't settle for simply being tolerated but never winning Sol's respect. The image of Sol's eyes each time he won against him had been branded into his memory: deep, rust brown irises and a patience that bordered on laconic. Sol's simple unconcern toward his defeat only proved he'd spent little effort in the battle. For brief moments Ky could swear he saw a feral, dangerous passion flash across the Corrupted Flame's youthful face when their swords locked, yet Sol forever denied him the right to test his steel against Sol's full strength.

A pained groan from Axl Low grounded Ky in the present.

"This is exactly as awkward as I thought it would be…" the British man whined to nobody in particular, looking at the meaty fruit Ky assumed Axl found more interesting than either himself or Sol.

"No, Axl," Ky apologized, "—I understand."

The Englander cheered back up immediately, beaming his patented disarming smile.

"Fantastic! That makes one of us."

A smile snuck onto Ky's lips, Axl's cheer as contagious as the pox and creeping up from inside him the same way.

"Please don't concern yourself, Mr. Low. I apologize for interrupting your errand."

Ky knew with certainty today would not be the day he bested Sol Badguy. And yet, his tactician's mind had begun to scheme and plan. He glanced at the tall American with his slouched shoulders and his unkempt hair. Sometimes Ky had a hard time not only believing that Sol could be counted among the world's most fearsome combatants but that the man arrested his attention all the ways he so undeniably did. "Sol. I'll see you again."

He accepted Sol's resigned grunt as the warrior's concession and didn't miss the unusual way Sol fixed his eyes on him. For all Sol played the lazy boor, Ky would never discount his intelligence; he'd seen Sol make too many split second decisions in the field and heard him drawl too many canny observations. So, he assumed Sol could already see him plotting a change of tact.

It mattered little in the scheme of their combative relationship. If their history together had proven anything, it was Sol's inability to deter him.

__________

Nothing set the morning everything changed apart from any other. The offices at the IPF bustled with activity: Kiske handed out assignments, conferred with other officers, and then returned to his office to drink an afternoon cup of Earl Grey and sift through the pile of daily reports his secretary, Bernard, had left on his desk. His eyes stuck on an unremarkable page detailing a rumored sighting of one of the IPF's Most Wanted.

_Sighting substantiated by the presence of bounty hunter Sol Badguy._

While Sol and Ky often met in their pursuit of similar goals and sometimes met by accident, Ky never specifically sought Sol out. Here in his hands he held the present location of the man inescapably intertwined with his life. In the weeks since they last met, Ky had decided that the next time he saw the bounty hunter he would forgo asserting the usual pressure. It took two people to start a fight.

He left his office to hand a stack of reports off to his second in command and the woman said what she said twice a week – words that usually went in one ear and out another: "Right on time, sir. Do you ever think about taking a holiday?"

Any other day, Ky would have quipped his usual response about justice never vacationing or the gears of the law needing constant oiling. The last time he'd taken a holiday was to pursue Dizzy as a private citizen. He could handle the workload and, moreover, hated to sit idle. Why, then, today, did the idea sound so revolutionary? It took him several silent moments to come to a realization:

"I believe it's time I did."

What Ky had not expected was how eager the entire office was to send him packing! Not two hours later, paperwork filed, he'd been hustled out the door by a group of enthusiastic subordinates reminding him "Relax, sir!" and "Sleep in, sir!" and "Try getting drunk, sir!"

It wasn't worth destroying their fantasy of him taking his ease on a beach somewhere with a drink in hand to explain to them he intended to do some bounty hunting a step outside the traditional confines of the law. That, and if he told them he'd be working on holiday he had a terrible suspicion they'd throw him in a cell and bring him entertainment articles and comfortable bedding, later.

By that evening, Ky was leaning on the rail of an airship in the cool evening air watching Europe pass beneath him, her forests dark and her cities glittering in the dusk. He slept on the airship and faced the next day brimming with resolve.

Sol had never gone the low-key route in matters of his appearance, even if he took a low-maintenance approach. The bright red half-jacket, stark white jeans, black straps everywhere and black tank top that revealed the strong muscles of his abdomen tended to draw the eye, if his wild hair with its stray strands flying and ponytail long and thick despite the close cropped hair beneath his headband didn't. As a bounty hunter, Sol's appearance said "Sol Badguy is coming for you" instead of allowing him to slip into town unnoticed.

Ky only had to ask one person to begin tracking down where Sol had gotten to.

He found the Corrupted Flame eating lunch at an open air café. Alongside beet soup and stuffed cabbage, he had secured a very A Country looking sandwich.

Instead of demanding Sol's attention like he might have otherwise, Ky took a seat at the table with him uninvited. Although Ky's heart beat fast in his chest, Sol became no snarling beast: he just glanced up at him and then continued eating. There he had it, then. He'd integrated himself seamlessly, just as Axl Low would have.

"Is the food here alright?" he inquired.

"Sure," Sol supposed around a full mouth, neither looking at him nor looking more sour than when left to his own devices.

Ky waved over a waitress and secured a paper menu. As he read it he talked for Sol's benefit, or maybe his own, without expecting any answer.

"I followed reports of Gerwazy Niemczyk. I'm supposed to be on holiday, but the truth is I don't know how to sit still." Dizziness passed over Ky as he bent the truth more than he was accustomed to. He hid his disorientation by smiling over the menu.

What could make him behave this way? Ky wondered privately if he'd become ill. Magical viruses stemming from research into forbidden magic had been mostly eliminated but were never out of the question – their side effects wildly unpredictable and often alarmingly different with each mutation.

Sol grunted at Ky's explanation without really saying anything.

Ky exercised his newfound power.

"When are we leaving?"

"After I eat."

How simple! How unbelievably simple! How, in a decade of conflict, had Ky never discovered this revolutionary tactic? Ky marveled over Sol's easy acceptance while he snacked on the tea and tea biscuits he ordered to tide himself over.

Sol didn't invite conversation, so Ky didn't make it. Instead, the young police chief tried to pretend he wasn't watching the bounty hunter while he otherwise unavoidably made observations about the wild Sol Badguy in its native habitat. After all, it had been years since they shared a meal together – since mess at Holy Order outposts and other places with small eating areas. Even then, Sol sat alone when space provided.

Sol had changed little over the years. Ky harbored his suspicions toward this reason and that reason, but he could now say they appeared the same age – two twenty-somethings sharing a meal, even if Sol was certainly over thirty. Sol still ate like an animal, tearing into his short rib sandwich as if he'd gone without food for weeks. But Sol was a big man, and an American, and Ky attributed voracious appetites to both.

With his boorish slouch and bovine chewing, Sol might have looked to the wait staff and the other diners as if he was oblivious to the goings-on around him. From their long association, Ky knew this to be anything but the case. Sol practiced a preternatural awareness honed through a lifetime of conflict. Ky startled his coworkers and even put his fellow officers ill at ease from similar abilities, often remarking on something that occurred nearby neither in his field of view nor more than scantly audible.

In his youth, a constant awareness of others he only glanced in passing had been a matter of survival. Of the other IPF officers who had served in the war, few had seen combat in the depths of the conflict in the same way as Ky. The behavior of a hardened, almost paranoid veteran set Ky apart from the majority of his subordinates. It startled Ky to discover how at ease it put him to spend a quiet meal with a man who took for granted what Ky sometimes had to explain and even apologize for.

Ky asked for his check when Sol asked for his and they both left Euros on the table, tip included. Ky tried to underplay the giddy feeling swirling inside him when he walked out in step with Sol. He imagined it was the same feeling of wonder he'd have being tolerated by a great cat, a tiger or a jaguar or anything else he'd otherwise expect to take a swipe at him.

He followed Sol to a small motel where they consulted maps and discussed Niemczyk's hiding place with ease of familiarity. How many times had they shared similar discussions of small Gear deployments moving in secret? Sol only made observations he sought comment on, and Ky's quick intellect swiftly provided alternative viewpoints. Ky murmured observations of his own to hear himself think as he did only among trusted advisors. Sol shot holes in them almost carelessly.

The two set out with quiet confidence towards the general location of their quarry. They found Niemczyk on the third day, a magic user of some fortitude – but their own magic was equally formidable. The poor fugitive, however renowned, had lost his freedom the minute Ky Kiske and Sol Badguy set out close on his trail.

They took Niemczyk by surprise, artfully avoiding and disarming his traps, both physical snares and magical symbols carved on trees and rocks powered by his own spilt blood like the Gear Testament employed. Niemczyk but up a brave resistance, a combination of elemental wind and blood magic and deadly fighting skill, but he ultimately battled hopelessly. If MegaDeath class Gears fell before the two former knights, and either could stand toe to toe with world class combatants, what scant hope did Niemczyk possess when they worked in concert?

Ky allowed Sol to collect the bounty, explaining to the IPF officers that received him that he himself was off duty and had assisted Sol strictly as a private citizen. Sol made no comment when Ky followed him back to the motel. Ky politely slept on the floor, although he didn't half wonder if he could have simply made room for himself on the bed. Now that he'd begun to explore the startling applications of Sol's inherent nonchalance, he perceived how varied they truly were.

As long as Ky had known him, Sol Badguy operated on the mechanic of shirking excess effort at all costs. Send him on a job and he'd do it; put him in the brig and he'd go without complaint; tell him to help with cleaning detail and he'd say "Find somebody else;" give him the day off and he'd sleep. It followed that without being antagonized Sol would shy from starting an argument.

Ky understood the clear difference between this and being a pushover, because it had often occurred that Sol decided the quickest end to Ky pressing an issue was to either beat Ky into unconsciousness or, with equal regularity, allow Ky to vent his pique and then simply take a good blow to signal his loss with those eyes Ky hated that told him Sol could scarcely have tried less.

While Ky remained of a nature that disallowed him from conceding to remain less than notable to the man he'd measured himself against since his teenage years, he stood a better chance of uncovering what it might be that could truly affect Sol Badguy if he could remain in the man's close proximity for more than a few hours at a time.

After Niemczyk, Sol took on another bounty in another country. Ky followed him to the station and bought a ticket for the same airship. He unexpectedly understood, then, what it felt like to be Axl Low, moving to place to place with little idea of his destination – simply adapting as his situation became clear.

The first few nights both in the forest and in the motel Ky had worried Sol would attempt to lose him. Rather, Sol took no measures to be silent about waking or moving around the campsite or the room. Ky believed he took it in the spirit Sol intended: that Sol changed his lifestyle for no man and refused to be reduced to sneaking around.

Within days, Ky got used to having one sided conversations:

"I wish I spent more time beyond the cities. The night sky is so clear."

"Nnn."

and

"I could get used to Norwegian breakfasts. There's something refreshing about fresh fish and crisp vegetables at six in the morning."

"Huh."

And yet for all the time Ky spent close to Sol, nothing remarkable presented itself. By the eleventh day, with two bounties down, restlessness set in. Ky had taken only two weeks off, yet somehow he'd expected that his radical change in tact would produce a noticeable, however infinitesimal, result. He had by this point begun sharing the bed with Sol – a daring move on their ninth night together, but two nights later Sol simply made room for him despite going to bed first.

Ky lay awake in the dark and watched Sol breathing. The shadow of his profile rose and fell. Ky wondered if Axl Low had ever done the same on some sleepless night and if it similarly soothed him.

Ky wondered if Sol and the boisterous and very physical Englishman touched in the dark, moving in the way lovers did – the two of them lonely wanderers with few other close acquaintances.

Ky's cheeks heated by several degrees.

Of course they didn't! Even if they did, it wasn't any of his business!

True, Ky never thought of Sol having sex with anyone. If he knew one thing about Sol, Sol neither liked nor saw need for company. Not that Ky could expect everyone to forgo sex simply because in his own case he'd always wanted to wait for a certain level of commitment he couldn't possibly nurture between being chief of the IPF and his behavioral flaws from spending his formative years completely immersed in battle until combat became his sole avenue for release from worries and tensions.

In his mind Ky reviewed his only recent romantic pursuit, a short lived thing with restaurant proprietor Jam Kuradoberi that amounted to the two of them being entirely too busy with their respective professions to make time to see if something could work. Ky found Jam both discomfortingly bold and pleasantly able to distract him from his job in a way that left him more focused when he returned instead of guilty. Once he'd learned these things, he believed at the time he should not discount her advances without the experience to judge the outcome of indulging her.

Didn't he find her beautiful? Yes, certainly beautiful. Athletic and graceful even if he thought she should…well, yes, he'd been grateful when she'd worn a longer cheongsam! He almost certainly wasn't supposed to see the things he saw when she kicked.

He respected her as a combatant and enjoyed hearing her laugh, which made it easy to spend time with her. Had he enjoyed kissing her? That had only really happened the two times…Hadn't it been pleasant? Well, he believed the second time he'd been more confident...

Ky strove to block out his awareness of the man lying in bed beside him. He'd bunked in close quarters with many men during the war; tonight was no different save the lack of any looming threat of impending death. He had no right to wonder how many relationships of his own Sol had engaged in in years past, and absolutely no right to allow himself to entertain lurid thoughts of Sol and Axl Low.

Homosexuality was not universally considered a sin, and neither was an illicit passing thought…but Ky had suddenly found himself at least waist deep in entertaining how to gratify a desire of a sinful nature.

Certainly waist deep.

Ky reached the definitive conclusion that he had never been aroused in this way by Jam Kuradoberi, which left him with a handful of staggering certainties.

One: He sided toward an attraction to the male of the species.

Two: He might have been tempted toward sex sooner had he not assumed he would only spend his life with a woman.

Three: His attraction centered on an obvious person of interest – a person he'd been drawn to since he came into maturity.

Ky only now recognized how familiar Sol's scent had become to him in the past days. The musky, oaky smell of his body salted with sweat from the day's successful pursuit drifted on the air. Ky imagined the scent would cling lightly to the pillow and covers after Sol rose the next morning. No, rather, he knew it would because yesterday when he remained in bed while Sol showered he'd rolled over into the space Sol had occupied to monopolize its warmth.

Ky needed a shower. Not—Not to touch himself, of course! The thought of Sol's scent clinging to his skin warned him he'd transgressed an intangible boundary. Sol had extended him no invitation to take pleasure from these thoughts or covet his body. While knowing Sol would undoubtedly say "Do whatever you want," the idea of projecting lust onto an unwitting man left Ky distinctly discomforted with himself, if not repulsed.

Ky slept little. When he woke, he did nothing. Nothing out of the ordinary, anyway. He bathed before Sol roused himself and they ate breakfast together. Later he kept himself busy with a book in the room while Sol went to do whatever it was Sol did on his own between bounties. Scouring for new bounties was at least part of it.

Their twelfth day together passed uneventfully. Sol returned with a handful of printouts and idly sat at the table and reviewed them. Ky finished his novel and went outside to exercise. Going a day without stretching his muscles wound him up to the point of distraction.

Determined to master himself, Ky went to bed with Sol. It seemed silly, now, that he hadn't gotten a separate room where it had seemed unnecessary, before, and counterproductive to a close observation of the bounty hunter. Yet God forbid Sol become suspicious of him here as Ky's leave approached its end. Nothing distressed Ky more than to think of Sol regarding him as a pervert, or stalker when he'd spent all these years pursuing his respect.

Or was it "his affection"?

"I'm returning to work, tomorrow," Ky told Sol as they left a bar they'd shaken down for information some miles from their previous location.

Sol took the news about as Ky anticipated: "Alright."

Ky stopped in the dirt there in the alleyway, between the wooden buildings under a setting northern sun. Sol must not have expected it, because he stopped, too, and even looked at him – a little wary, as if he suspected Ky might draw. Ky rallied his courage.

"Has it been good or bad – to travel with me?"

Sol paused, as if he had to think a moment. (Ky hoped he didn't tax himself.)

"Hardly noticed."

Ky supposed that was better, on the whole, than having made a nuisance of himself. It might have even been the highest compliment he could be paid by Sol Badguy.

It wasn't enough.

Ky had begun to despair it could ever _be_ enough. Whether he pushed or pulled or provided quiet company, it appeared he could never make his mark as more than a mild disruption to the bounty hunter's routine. And when Sol involved himself with anything involving That Man, Ky would be further reduced to an afterthought. After years spent with Sol perhaps no friend but certainly the man that best understood him, Kiske struggled to bear it.

Desperation seized at him and he grabbed Sol by the lower wings of his notched collar. He had no time to take satisfaction at the surprise on Sol's face, because he hauled Sol against him and captured the bounty hunter's appealing lips. His abandonment of reason and tact forced Ky to privately wonder just how long he'd wanted to taste Sol's sun tanned skin even as his stomach twisted into knots.

He risked betraying all his morals and the integrity of the lines he'd drawn between right and wrong, and for what? Sol withstood the onslaught without reciprocating.

Knowing Sol might give him no other chance to dare an impropriety of this scale and that he dared not allow himself this trespass a second time even if chance allowed, Ky surrendered to the impulse for intimacy. He even dragged his teeth across Sol's spit-slick lower lip and sucked on the soft skin he'd captured. His imagination flickered across unfamiliar longings for bare skin and the heat of another body before he became ashamed for taking advantage of the Corrupted Flames and pushed himself away, shoving Sol back a step and himself back two. He struggled to catch his excited breath and made a detailed study of the ground.

Sol's slow drawl left Ky with no illusions of mutuality: "Geez…"

Shame flared to anger, and Ky suddenly had no hesitation over meeting Sol's eyes.

"That's what you say to me? 'Geez'…! You know me. How dare you just—…"

"Kid," Sol warned. "Ya better figure out in the next six seconds jus' how little I owe you."

The desire to clock the bounty hunter a square one served to remind Ky he strove to be the better man. He marveled at the fierce sense of betrayal Sol's dismissal stoked on top of the usual ire.

"…I apologize. My behavior has been inappropriate."

Sol pushed his fingers through his wild hair and scratched his scalp above the headband that seemed, having never been removed in Ky's presence, to be bodily attached to his forehead. He squinted at the young man in front of him.

"I can't believe you're still a virgin."

Ky's mouth fell open, whatever retort he'd been preparing dead at conception. Sol didn't even make the pretense of telling a joke, just raised a brow with a disinterested sort of incredulity.

Ky ground out "I'll take my leave," thankful his anger stayed the embarrassment that would later descend on him in private.

What he didn't expect was Sol Badguy slamming him into a wall. For all he could have defended against him, his disbelief incapacitated him. Sol didn't put his hands on him, those braced against the wall, but his weight bore down against Ky and his mouth…his mouth...

Ky had never been kissed like Sol kissed him, right now. He'd never had another person lick his way into his mouth or suck on his tongue. He'd never had his lips bitten sharply and left with an aching memory of teeth or so acutely perceived how kissing could lead to sweatier, more naked activities.

Ky didn't reciprocate Sol's practical ravishment of his mouth, but, then, he possessed no rival finesse.

Sol relinquished only when a groan escaped unbidden from Ky's tightened throat. His sinful tongue licked Ky's lips, an animal gesture, and he remained close, that too-hot warmth betraying his mastery of fire heating Ky's body. Convinced his face must have been scarlet, Ky concentrated on catching his breath.

Where did they go from here? Ky knew if he spent too long in thought Sol would leave him be. At least, he assumed so, but then his past experience never prepared him to be thus accosted. Did he want Sol to leave him alone? Not if he was honest with himself.

"I wish I knew what to do right now," he confessed breathlessly, unprecedentedly vulnerable and praying that this one time Sol would have mercy on him, if God might not.

"That's easy, ain't it?" Sol drawled. Did Ky detect humor in his words? Ky's sense of shame redoubled.

"Not as easy as you might think."

When Sol said, "I'm goin' back to the motel," Ky grasped the implicit connotation that he'd extended an invitation. If he hadn't, he wouldn't have bothered to tell him and just let him guess. Either way, he backed off and left Ky there.

Ky's head fell back against the wall of the building behind him, the Thunderseal digging into his back. He closed his eyes, feeling its magic flow into him. Despite possessing no intellect of its own, in many ways the powerful weapon had long been his most intimate companion. It offered strength and solace in its simple reliability. Sol represented an unknown quantity.

If Ky offered himself, would it last? Doubts lurked in his heart, promising disaster. And, if he did, it would represent a certain abandonment of morality – of control. Which troubled him more? His suspicion that it might be the latter cast a dark pall over his desires.

Since Kliff Undersn found him on the field of battle at only ten years old, Ky had already made up his mind how he would live his life. Necessity drove him. The memory of his parents' dead and mutilated bodies compelled him to fight. When Kliff told him to return to him in five years, Ky wasted no time on a childhood. Instead he trained and studied, preparing himself to face the Gears , this time as their certain doom. He lived in church housing as a refugee during those years, adopting their guidance as a compass to a life of purpose to wield against his enemy.

His carefully plotted course meant nothing in the face of Sol Badguy. Here was a creature like himself who lived for nothing but a cause, and yet Sol traveled an opposite path. Instead of walking a straight and narrow road Sol meandered through life, bulldozing through his daily concerns. And, was Sol any less on an inevitable course toward a sole destination? No, only utterly without principle in terms of the means that would ultimately carry him there.

Nothing for it.

Nothing for it but to return to the motel and face his ogre. If Ky's fears caused him to skirt this encounter they would only fester and multiply. He needed, first and foremost, to know himself, and right now he didn't know whether he'd surrender to this bestial and long-neglected thing inside him or find his resolve to turn Sol down however much he longed for his companionship.

Ky let himself into the unlocked room, but locked the door behind him. Sol sat at the room's small, circular table, making notes on a map in the usual way. It could have easily been the same room as the other two motels they stayed in, as it was used for the exact same purpose – only the cheap decorations and the color of the chipped stucco the wall differed.

This was not the kind of place Ky had ever imagined losing his virginity in. When he thought about it at all, his imaginings had taken place in his own home with someone he loved.

Ky's eyes glanced over Sol's broad, bare shoulders and the buckles tight against his skin that had taken on a new definition, drawing Ky's gaze to parts of Sol's body he'd seen before and never thought of touching, or kissing.

"Sol, I still don't know what to do."

"No?"

"Of course not."

For once, asking for help produced the desired effect. Sol set down his pen and folded up the map. Ky's breath caught as the bounty hunter turned his rust-brown eyes on him, marveling, as he sometimes did, at their unusual color.

"Usually somebody takes their clothes off," Sol offered, obviously waiting to see if Ky would start.

For a moment, Ky wondered if this was a trick or practical joke on Sol's part. Sol was hardly the type. So, Ky unsnapped the front piece that secured his cowl. Sol watched him remove it and Ky had to admit he enjoyed Sol's attention focused solely on him as he slipped his cowl off and left himself similarly bare shouldered in his high collared, sleeveless shirt. They'd achieved equity in their state of dress and Ky hesitated to go further on his own.

Sol huffed softly, once again intoned as if he might have a sense of humor, after all. (Ky had almost only seen him in good humor in the field in pitched battles with a wild, violent smile except one rare time when he caught Sol and Kliff in a private moment of repose – and banter – in the commander's office.)

The Corrupted Flame stood, bringing his hand to his breast to unfasten the large buckle on his jacket. A few brusque movements and he'd discarded it, baring an alluring peek of his powerful chest. Ky could hardly imagine Sol more undressed than this, even though he'd seen him change and even seen him in a towel. He had not, at the time, associated all that bare skin with any carnal indulgence.

"You're scared?"

Ky should have expected the question, but it perturbed him, anyway.

"I'm certain you bite," he pointed out. When Sol's brow raised Ky smiled a little. "It's a joke…"

"I bite," Sol assured him.

Arousal washed through Ky's lower body at the idea of being—being _bitten_.

What had become of him?

Sol stepped forward, grasping the back of Ky's neck, but it was Ky who kissed him. They didn't share a romantic kiss or anything like it. As Ky anticipated, Sol treated him roughly and still kissed like a beast, all hunger and physicality. This time, however, Ky reciprocated — he had always been a quick study. Ky's kisses with Jam couldn't compare to having his mouth ravaged by Sol's determined exploration, and Ky allowed his thoughts to linger on the incredible body pressed against his own.

Yes, he wanted to experience this. Even if he hated himself the next day.

Sol left him panting and began unfastening the clasps that held his shirt. Ky allowed the bounty hunter to push it off his shoulders with unfamiliar obedience and his own eager hands stripped Sol of his clinging black top. Now Sol's skin lay revealed and Ky's…Ky's as well. And the aching heat at the juncture of his own thigh was almost too much to think about.

"Sol," Ky had to ask; had to _know_. "Do you and Axl…"

"Don't be stupid," Sol growled, and shoved him away. After a moment's bewilderment, Ky realized he'd been navigated toward the bed and he backed up as Sol closed in. Sol caught him, caught him under the thighs, even, hauled him up against him and then deposited him on the mattress. Ky cried out as Sol tossed him. The wind rushed out of him when he landed, but then Sol climbed atop him and he couldn't voice a complaint – more because Sol was at his mouth again than his inability to form a couple or five.

Their belt buckles clacked as they collided and Sol's massive chest brushed Ky's own more slender yet nearly as strong body. Ky reveled in an act that once mystified him; in kissing so crudely it could be called "swapping spit." His mouth awash in Sol's saliva and their bruised lips uncommonly wet, Ky couldn't remember why the term had ever repulsed him. And then their belts scraped as Sol dragged their hips together and Ky let slip an ungentlemanly moan and clung to Sol's bigger body.

How in the world did two men have sex, lacking the appropriate composition of parts, anyway? Ky had never wondered, and never asked, although he'd heard things…but obviously they couldn't…

Oh.

Sol abandoned Ky's wet, swollen lips and began to bite his way down Ky's jaw. His tongue swept its underside and then his teeth pinched its soft skin. Warning screamed along Ky's nerves, for what tried to go for his throat but a predatory Gear? (No, right now he wouldn't think about—) The danger only supplied fuel for his mounting pleasure – the thrill invigorating to a man forged for war. The adrenaline flooding his blood lured him toward abandon; that familiar energy lending him direction—…and then Sol's hand cupped an unmentionable part of his body through his pants and the heavy cloth that girded his loins and gave it a squeeze.

"Sol!" he barked in chastisement.

"S'point innit?" Sol purred lowly, his voice a sound heretofore unknown to Ky. Sol's grip only tightened.

Ky clenched his eyes shut and tried to ignore how he felt his pulse throbbing beneath Sol's fingers and palm, the sensation too lewd. The noises that escaped him as Sol stroked his thumb across the cloth couldn't have come from his own throat. Ky hardly recognized the man whose hips urgently pressed into Sol's grasp.

"Give it up, Kiske…" Sol drawled, not seducing but commanding him. Instead of taking insult Ky only rejoiced to hear his own name spoken rather than 'kid.' Ky whispered "Yes," and Sol rewarded his capitulation with a last squeeze before his hand made its way up to one-handedly tug Ky's two belts open.

Ky could have asked a thousand questions. Why are you doing this? What are you planning? Will we talk about this tomorrow? Have you known how I felt about you longer than I have? Could this ever happen a second time? Have I earned your trust? Had I earned it in the past?

He held his tongue, because only rarely did a single victory prove the end of the war. As for Sol's tongue, it found better, more erotic things to do than talk while Sol nibbled on his collarbone and, with his less preoccupied hand, toyed with a nipple and stroked Ky's chest.

Ky's skin burned with pleasure, and the removal of his belt and the heavy cloth attached to its buckle came as a liberation. His boots…a shame about his boots, strapped to his legs as they were, because he couldn't kick them off or anything like that and for the first time in his life he desired to be naked with another person – _for_ another person. The desire coursing through his veins sung to him of combat and the scent of smoke and blood and steel. No battle, this, a rout and yet a victory.

Sol began to descend Ky's body, lips trespassing everywhere and tongue leaving a cooling path of saliva on his skin. Ky's eyes widened and he stared at the ceiling and then at Sol in disbelief as Sol began unbuttoning his trousers. Sol couldn't possibly—…but Sol had so much pride!

Nevertheless, Sol eased Ky's erection out of his briefs. Seeing his own erection clasped in Sol's bare fingers and fingerless gloves both embarrassed Ky and excited him beyond belief. Unable to decide between the warring emotions he looked away, toward the ceiling, again, and then shut his eyes. He believed Sol's next grunt to be a chuckle, and then Sol's thumb traced the head of his erection, pushing the foreskin down from the soft glans. Sol lapped at the crown Ky's erection as he had other, less intimate skin and Ky moaned as a molten heat rushed through its hard length.

"Sol…" Ky murmured, in wonder, not rebuke.

"That's what some people call me," Sol gruffed, before returning his tongue to a better use. His grasp slid further down Ky's erection and the licking turned to nursing, Sol's mouth hot and wet, the underside of his lips incredibly smooth each time he slid away and the pleasure as thought-robbing as anything Ky ever experienced. He reduced Ky's body to a livewire of powerful need more literally than Ky intended when Ky heard the sharp snap of electricity.

Sol drew away and Ky opened his eyes to see him rubbing his mouth.

"Shit, kid!"

For once Ky didn't inwardly protest at the name; for once perhaps deserving it.

"I-I'm sorry!"

"Jesus…"

"I didn't realize…" Under the circumstances, Ky couldn't even reproach him for taking the Lord's name in vain.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know." Ky heard him grouse something sounding suspicious like "In the fucking mouth…" beneath his breath and couldn't believe he'd lost track of his magic.

Sol sat back. For a split second Ky feared he'd ruined everything. Sol started taking his belts off and reassurance and lust overcame his embarrassment.

Ky began unbuckling and removing his gloves and then managed to sit up and remove his boots while trying to pay as little attention as he could to his flushed and stiffened sex. He wavered with uncertainty, finally deciding to leave his pants and briefs as they were until Sol saw fit to otherwise disrobe him. He watched Sol unbuckle the straps on his arm and his thighs. Strange how little he could recall of morals and scripture when lured to the idolatrous worship of Sol's body.

Never a man to take any event lying down, he rose to his knees and put his hands on Sol's bare skin. Sol allowed it, allowing Ky to touch him and even lean forward and press his lips to his neck and his shoulders and chest. Ky unbuttoned the top button of Sol's jeans, but couldn't bring himself to go further, his own thin slacks bunching at his hips and brushing his erection in strange but not unpleasant ways. He ceased his exploration and sat back, breathing hard.

The one thing Sol hadn't unbuckled was his headband. Ky glanced up at it, wondering, and Sol's relatively open expression incrementally hardened.

"No chance."

Ky knew. Suspected. No, perhaps he knew, although he couldn't fathom the explanation.

(_"Is he really human?"_)

Sin compounded on sin, but he couldn't ask now.

"So…what do we do?" he asked, instead, voice unusually throaty. "You see, I've heard rumors, but really I'm unclear on the particulars." Another attempt at humor.

"You do it in the ass."

"…_Sol_," Ky swore in exasperation. No, he couldn't expect to be seduced, could he? Growling he pulled Sol down to the mattress with him and rolled him over, bearing down on his lips as his fingers curled against Sol's chest, nails digging against his skin. Who did Sol this was doing _what_ to whose ass? It was Sol's turn to groan and Ky relished the sound. Ky kneed Sol's leg up a little, muscled thigh against muscled thigh. He had no doubts toward his capability. Any doubts that might have haunted him were summarily dismissed by the certainty of his insistent erection.

Unfortunately, even with the mighty Sol Badguy surrendering beneath him, even with Sol making delicious, bewildered sounds as Ky dug his nails in harder and pillaged his mouth with his usual violence toward the man because he'd inferred from Sol's behavior just how Sol liked it. His thoughts, of course, had to finally catch up, and he lifted himself off Sol's body to rest above him with his arms braced against the mattress.

"…damn it, I can't." He looked hard at Sol, and didn't find what he sought. "I can't do it while you lie there. I can't see your eyes afterwards, because you won't care, will you? It'll be the same as every other time I haven't earned it." Sol's eyes told him everything. Just because they were mostly naked and taking their dicks out didn't mean anything, after all. What Ky desired so desperately couldn't be found in the bedroom, either – in no place in particular but within Sol, and Sol wouldn't concede it.

__________

For a split second Sol thought he'd fucked it up completely. Ky gazed down on him and judged him guilty and shit if he didn't feel it. Not that he could be wholly at fault or Ky blameless. Like a child, Ky asked everything from him without ever considering the reasons he might be unwilling to bare himself, and he had reasons enough. And then Ky sprung yet another unexpected turn on the Corrupted Flame:

"Come on, Sol. Finish what you started."

Rare chance that fate allowed Sol that, but if it did tonight he couldn't refuse. His irrefutable desire compelled him to turn the tables once again, he rolled Ky onto his back and dragged the kid's pants off his strong legs. About what Sol expected, there: dark blonde hairs in curls. (Or had he expected Ky to shave? Who the fuck knew what compulsions ruled the French this century, after all.)

His lips still stung from electrocution, but he'd risk a little pain to have the body spread out in front of him. Yeah, he'd noticed the kid had grown from a teenager of fey beauty into a striking man, handsome and built. Not that Sol had only ever slept with men, but as it went he didn't go for the effete ones, so it was only as the kid matured that he had to admit he could, even would, take him to bed. Not that he'd ever intended to take him to bed, because Ky could be emotional and vindictive and came off as a prude.

He remained squarely at risk from the former.

Sol got his own pants off, knowing Ky watched him from the way he heard him swallowing air. Yeah, it was a pretty good size, thank god, because he'd been stuck with it a century and a half. Ky didn't have anything to scoff at, himself.

"Gotta make it slippery. Got oil for that sword?"

"…don't you?"

"Why would I?"

He could read Ky's apparent distaste at his treatment of the Divine Implement Ky to this day believed he stole, but Sol had made the thing from raw materials and thought he knew what abuse it could take a little better than Kiske. (He couldn't steal something he owned in the first place.)

"In the right pocket of my bag," Ky directed him. Sol went and dug it out, palming it and climbing back onto the bed where he'd left the kid waiting long enough to look attractively sexually frustrated.

Kiske's god blessed him with sex appeal in spades, his blonde hair mussed and his pupils blown, a blush on his cheeks and his pale chest and every part of him fit and toned, while not thick with muscle in the same way as Sol despite the considerable strength of his arms.

Sol opened the mineral oil and poured a little into his right hand to rub the index finger of his dominant hand through. From experience he knew a willing ass didn't need much poking around in, but here Ky had never had his ass messed with before and Sol knew he might not want to start out with a cock.

"Relax," he ordered, not much for being in charge except when he expected somebody to rely on his greater experience, anyway. Ky nodded and took a deep breath.

Sol spread Ky's legs, right hand leaving a smear of oil on his skin. He wondered why Ky had asked him if he and Axl did the same thing, but wondered if that didn't explain all this. Ky'd gotten quirky last time he saw the two of them traveling together.

Jealousy sort of suited him if it meant he left claw marks on Sol's chest with those hard, blunt nails.

Sol pressed the tip of his finger into the tight skin of Ky's anus, watching the kid's face wince in wonder. No disgust, though, so he pressed it in further and then pulled it out, feeling Ky's skin follow a ways along with it and hearing Ky gasp. He started fucking him on it slowly, seeing if Ky told him to lay off it or not. It looked like not. Ky squirmed and shifted against his touch.

Sol got some more oil and slicked up his middle finger, careful about his nails when he pushed the two of them in. No stretching it unevenly, though, because Sol possessed superhuman strength and considering the delicate skin at hand he didn't need to risk tearing it – even if Ky _had_ electrocuted him in the mouth. Watching his fingers appear and disappear into Ky's body stoked answering heat in his cock and his skin craved to rub up on Ky's, the carnal instinct intensified by his superhuman senses and the same…no, a greater, magic infusion than what drove production model Gears to wild fervor.

"I don't know what I thought this would feel like, but it was nothing like this…" Ky murmured. Sol congratulated himself on a job well done as his fingers continued to thrust. He enjoyed the sounds that escaped Kiske now and then. In fact, enjoyed them a lot.

"Just wait," he said and slipped his fingers out of Ky's ass.

He pulled the sheet up and wiped his fingers off one at a time and his right palm, too, although he'd get oilier yet. He grinned that lopsided, feral grin usually reserved for the thrill of a fight and Ky's eyes widened accordingly. Damn if he wouldn't fuck him just like he now expected, too.

The cool oil did nothing but heat his cock, and his body normally ran hot. He let himself work up to it. It'd been awhile since he'd done this with anybody but when Ky'd kissed him things finally fell into place between the two of them. Maybe on some level he'd known Ky's relentless pursuit of him stemmed from the kid's monumental repression. Hell, he'd considered the possibility before without giving it a lot of serious thought.

No doubt it could hurt to indulge him, but he wouldn't deny him this, either, when he'd already spent years denying Ky. He'd seen thwarted desire fester in others over his long lifespan. Between the proverbial rock and hard place, he chose venting the pressure on Ky instead of allowing it build and finally bottleneck.

He enjoyed the sight of his teeth marks as red bruises on Ky's body and mapped the places that remained to be bitten. His hunger mounted at the thought of the virgin place shadowed between Ky's thighs. It went to him. For a world of reasons, he'd be the one to first lay claim and whatever came of it he'd still be the one that opened that floodgate between the job-betrothed sixteen year old and the grown man with human desires inside him.

"Y' do this with a stranger you use a condom," he sagely advised, more to raise the kid's hackles than anything else.

He got a rise: "I wouldn't 'do this' with strangers!"

Sol could've laughed if it wouldn't ruin his reputation.

Sol lunged onto him without warning, more gratifying with Ky all prickly because then the kid latched onto him with those strong hands and gave what he got. Sol bit Ky's body and rubbed their cocks together, slippery mineral oil slicking the motion. Ky moaned and growled, both kinds of sounds a real turn on. He held Sol to him when Sol slipped it in and inexorably guided the Corrupted Flame into a kiss. Sol couldn't complain because he happened to be ass deep in the guy with his cock remembering what he had it for for the first time in awhile, so Sol kissed him.

Sol couldn't appreciate Ky's firm ass enough. Women came with their own pleasures, but all the muscle on Ky's buttocks was something else as he rutted into him. When they clenched around him, Sol felt it all through him.

He broke away from Ky's lips to watch Ky panting under him. Ky looked embarrassed at first to have Sol studying him with his body laid bare and penetrated deep, but for one Sol loved to see it and for the other Ky got over it real quick – which Sol had more or less expected.

Ky shut his eyes to let Sol look his fill, so Sol did. Ky Kiske: breathing labored and body given up to desire. Odds were nobody else would drink in this sight; not for awhile. And Sol wouldn't mind seeing it again… – as if he deserved to. He knew he didn't just as sure as he knew Ky's driven nature barred entry to other lovers. Ky accused him of withholding himself even as he guarded his heart in all the same ways.

Thought gave way to action and action consumed him the usual passion, his incredible capacity for the physical Sol's one escape from his guilt and his fate. He hammered the kid because Kiske could take it, and Kiske liked it, too, because sparks of electricity popped against Sol's skin, stinging as deep as the nerves went. Ky threw his head back against the pillows and began to make pleading noises that had Sol obediently jerking him off like Ky'd trained him for him.

The kid came first with a cry that might've been his name, given precedent, or a curse or maybe a cry to his god. Sol didn't come when Ky spasmed around him and spread a sticky warmth between their stomachs. It didn't take much more, though, with Sol arched over Kiske surging into him as his thrusts became instinctual and uncontrolled. He unloaded inside him, semen rushing through his cock and suffusing Ky's ass with additional heat.

"Sol…" Ky said with exhaustion as the Corrupted Flame's heavy body sank onto him. Sol liked hearing his name like that. Maybe because it promised despite his own fervent beliefs he wasn't all bad, although from a man as broken as Ky Kiske – orphaned, fanatical and repressed – Sol couldn't call the judgment impartial.

"Sleep on it, Ky."

Ky's tired, sexed-out expression bloomed into a smile. Sol gave him at least that and hoped as he slid his cock out of the kid that, for once, he'd given more than he'd taken. The last time he'd practiced generosity was in the face of Her daughter.

Ky slept on it, and he slept close. Sol forgave him his trespass. He reckoned a lot of people wanted a cuddle after somebody took their virginity.

Sol dreaded the morning to come, dreaded Ky's insatiable need to 'talk' even before sex came into the picture. (Ky talked, men grunted.) For tonight, though, Ky's nearness offered some measure of peace.

As he gradually relinquished his hold on consciousness, Sol wondered what it might have been like to lower his guard for Ky in return for the rare chance to put his body in the hands of another. Might never know, and didn't deserve it moreso than everything else.

In lieu of a jury trial, he'd condemned himself for his crimes, whatever that meant for his future.

__________

Morning delivered on everything Sol feared. Not right away, no. Ky woke up but just rested his head on Sol's chest awhile, and Sol allowed it. When Ky's big damn brain had had a chance to work through everything, though, then off he went.

"This isn't going to be a relationship…is it?"

"Don't see why you gotta define it."

"Because I'm a monogamist, and I didn't plan for this to happen."

"Pretty much had advance notice."

"Yes. And, thank you."

"Mm."

"I don't think I'm in love with you…"

That called for sarcasm: "Thank Christ."

"Maybe I could be. I can't deny I feel a connection…"

Yep. This had gone too far.

"I can't be that."

"Sol, why…?"

"Doesn't matter. I told you: close your eyes; it's peace or justice."

Ky wouldn't stand for that. Ky didn't need to get going for Sol to see the rant coming. He read it in Ky's face and in his body. He could almost predict the words before Ky _did_ go off.

"Do you think I'm stupid? After you singlehandedly defeated Justice and allowed us to win the war…and defeated him again, at Testament's tournament! Besides, Mito Anji-san showed me what I already knew when he asked me 'Is Sol really human?' So, at least tell me what you're hiding, because recently you've left me thinking you may make into your enemy."

The kid was a little thick sometimes, but he could stand to be dumber. Sol didn't have much to say, except:

"Justice was a woman."

Ky clammed up. Only for a minute, though. The foreboding silence unnerved the Corrupted Flame because this time he didn't know what was coming next.

It turned out to be about as bad as it could be:

"..Sol, take off your headband."

Under duress, Sol thought he might even be willing to do that – but he knew the cost.

"Are you ready for the two of us to become enemies?"

"Whatever you've done, it can't be unforgiveable. If it was, Kliff would never have brought you into the Order."

So foolishly pure was the conviction on Ky's face that for a moment Sol pitied him, and then he thought better of it. Ky had made his mark on the world and deserved better than pity. Ultimately, though, what Ky deserved Sol couldn't afford to give.

"I made a mistake."

"Everyone makes—" Ky quickly realized what Sol was talking about. "No…Sol, just explain what's going on."

Sol lugged himself out of bed. It looked like time to get dressed, so he picked up his pants.

"Forget about what we did; 's my bad."

"You don't get to do this to me. I won't let you!"

"Oh? So, you'll pay the repair bill after you try to stop me…right?"

If Sol said electricity crackled in Ky's angry blue eyes, he'd be speaking in a literal sense. An answering pulse arced across the surface of the Thunderseal, hissing and snapping. Sol ignored his show of power – just pulled on his black tank top, tugged it down over his stomach and reached for his jacket.

"Sol!" Ky demanded, but he failed to command attention. Sol buckled his jacket across his chest, knowing he'd succumbed to a weakness he couldn't allow to cripple him. _Let him hate me,_ he thought, because he had no illusions he deserved else but contempt, for this and for far more than Ky fathomed.

When had he let Ky Kiske sway him from his dogged desire for solitude? Not when the kid kept prodding and prying as he rose through the ranks the Order at an astoundingly early age. Or was it? Was it when in a moment of physical helplessness Kiske confided _If you're here, I feel safe_ despite ordering him to the brig not twenty-four hours before? A knight could've won a rare laugh out of him back then had they suggested he'd ever end up in bed with Ky Kiske; but kids grew up.

"Don't act like I'm not here," a low, angry voice threatened from the bed. When Sol turned to look at him, Ky gathered the blankets to his waist to hide his nakedness. Except for his belts and jacket Sol had gotten himself clothed. Ky scowled at him, his glare daunting to be on the receiving end of even for Sol Badguy.

"You wanna make this harder than it is?"

"You bastard! From where I'm sitting it looks like you think I'm all too easy."

Sol rolled his eyes.

"We can do that thing where I'm even more of an ass so you don't get to blame it on yourself or wonder if y' did something wrong."

Ky laughed, and not bitterly, which made Sol pay attention. Ky's demeanor underwent an abrupt one-eighty, his rage escaping him. "Sol, that's the longest sentence you've ever said to me. If you put a even little of the effort you put into shutting me out into just being honest with me—…At least tell me _why_."

Sol hardly believed he'd come to the day where Ky Kiske talked sense instead of hopes and dreams and wishful, naïve fantasy. It won honesty, no question about that. A difficult honesty, but there it was. Sol answered him in a rough voice:

"Because if I answer your questions, they'll just lead to more. You said Kliff wouldn't have dragged me into the Holy Order if I'd committed an act that couldn't be forgiven. You're wrong. He worked me hard because I did." Sol couldn't remember speaking so much, for so long, not to anyone in years. Even this small concession came with labor and exhausted some atrophied thing inside him.

Ky had gentled, his words no longer accusative.

"If you'll just keep talking…You don't have to talk about this."

"I can't."

'Then…just come sit beside me."

"I can't."

"You're a vexing man, Corrupted Flame."

Ky said it with such unprecedented understanding Sol couldn't help but laugh, only a chuckle, and this bitter.

"Y' can't save me; and I'll damn you," Sol swore, and meant every world. "World needs what you're sellin', kid."

Kiske's expression shuttered, but the rare comprehension remained alive. He wore a weary, barely visible smile, and Sol saw the burden he carried spending away his youth on war and world leadership weighing on his shoulders.

"God, by your grace, please save us."

His choice of words meant too much – the Order's prayer before battle.

Sol looked away and started strapping his uniform together.

"Fly safe," he told him. Meaningless, but what else to say?

"I'll see you again," Ky promised a second time. The sure, steely voice that commanded armies commanded Sol to accept.

Sol didn't seek out arguments, only finished them, and, so, he didn't argue.

After Ky dressed and left – nothing else said between them just a shared look that lingered – Sol had time to reflect on what he'd done, and all the things he didn't do.

Could he have loved the kid, in another world or another time? Kiske had his strong points. He displayed a particular brilliance at anticipating the movements of an enemy force, treated his subordinates as human beings and refused to stand idle at the sight of injustice in a broken world that had seen the ravages of a score of compromises too many. Sol acknowledged Ky's strengths, but rarely benefitted from them.

The kid had no family and holding a position of command since late childhood afforded him many friends, but few peers. Even men and women in positions of power and three times Kiske's age treated the Sacred Order of Holy Knights' golden boy with deference.

Sol could remember and even relate to Kiske's plight despite his century and a half's distance from the man he'd been at Ky's age. His intellect led him toward uncommon pursuits as a child who sat the table with the geeks and the rejects. Like all bright and ostracized children, his inability to conform produced defiance and depression in equal turns. If anyone could put himself in Kiske's shoes, it was the brilliant young scientist who learned acclaim and papers published through peer review were a sore substitute for companionship and laughter.

It also happened that the reason Sol held himself apart was because he'd found all three: companionship, laughter and a rare kind of love, more passionate than many physical relationships. He could see the ghosts of it in every ruined building, in every death ridden, drug trading slum and when he walked through the colonies of the displaced Japanese—

Three minds as one. Three intellects in harmony. One shared vision of a world free of energy dependency, of disease, of aging and even the shackles that separated man's genius from the strength of beasts or the flight of eagles. And there it was, alive in his memory and in some ways more real than his wander's life: the year love destroyed the world.

Their words rang in his ears as if they spoke beside him, from that pain wracked beginning until the day he brought the end; from _"We'll have control. The first Gear must be a person we intimately trust,"_ to _"If only we could have talked one last time... Just the three of us..."_

Sol had no right to shatter the solace Ky had achieved after the war in his service to the IPF. Not when Ky could still assert with conviction, "I know you are after the man who created Gears. If that was the cause of the Holy War, then the police should be after him too."

Maybe Ky would inevitably be drawn into the greater conflict. He seemed, in fact, to have a knack for showing up in the wrong places despite not chasing down the truth (likely unto his death) like Anji Mito. And, Sol knew the Post-War Administration Bureau had taken a personal interest in the young war hero.

Nonetheless, Sol Badguy wouldn't be the one to wound Ky with the truth. Whether it stemmed from selfish, covetous desire or from an earnest wish for Ky to seize what peace he could find in a world Sol was as responsible as anyone for bringing to its knees…

That remained to be seen.

__________

 

From listening to the gossip of the younger officers both in the Holy Order and at IPF headquarters, his own peers, Ky gathered that among ordinary young men sex, while an arresting diversion, changed no lives nor anyone's perception of themselves or their world. With his body still aching from exertion and his mind yet reeling at the mewling, pleading creature he became beneath Sol's aggression, Ky couldn't dismiss sex so lightly.

With the moment lying stripped of meaning behind him, Ky failed to understand how Sol made him into such a fool. Where he could usually blame the bounty hunter for a glut of transgressions, his own undeniable culpability as instigator and escalator barred him from shirking responsibility. His defiled body served as a constant reminder of failure and loss no matter how many smiles he spent masking his fall.

Sitting alone in his office, staring into the still, dark surface of his steaming tea, Ky grasped at straws seeking meaning in his encounter with Sol Badguy.

He had his confirmation of Sol's true nature: a Gear, vampire, or immortal – but no human being. Since Ky had now seen every tanned inch of Sol's skin save whatever the Corrupted Flame hid beneath his head band, a sick, greasy feeling in Ky's stomach told him Sol fell somewhere among the ranks of the Gears.

More questions, then, indeed. How did he act independently during the Holy War? How did he remain mobile after the defeat of Justice? These things suggested Sol to be a command-type Gear. If so, who created him? The Post-War Administration Bureau? The Blackard Company? Another player in a game which defied the conventional definitions of human decency, balance of power and, according to Sol, even justice? Sol sought That Man the world over – could it have been that shadowy and unknowable figure? Why would a command-type Gear be created in competition with Justice? Could Sol be, like Dizzy, a half-Gear?

The questions rolled on. Why did Sol believe they'd become enemies if he revealed his true nature? Several years ago Ky, in ignorance, would have branded him a monster. And yet everything had changed when Solaria came under the protection of the IPF and inspired Ky to seek that innocent girl in the forest with an open heart.

Surely Sol knew better than to believe Ky would any longer pass judgment on a Gear for accident of birth.

Then again, in the hunt for Dizzy Sol ultimately proved himself the one unable to forgive or compromise up until he beat out all others, including Ky himself, to face the young woman. Dizzy alone stayed the sword of the Corrupted Flame with her gentleness and genuine kindness. Ky found her there, afterward, with Testament gravely injured and Dizzy unharmed but shaken.

Sol's hatred for Gears easily eclipsed that of the Holy Order's former commander. Ky hated the sin of the Gear's creation – the abominable corruption of living souls. For those born of sin, he offered compassion. And, to Sol, Ky had offered even more. ('Corruption'…Of course.)

Sol correctly appraised at least one thing: Ky yet lacked the knowledge to fit the pieces of this puzzle together.

"Sol..."

Ky listened to the name fall from his lips. He'd been calling it since his teenage years, in command, in anger and as a plea. Now, he heard the unmistakable stain of desire.

By biting the apple, Ky understood why the naked woman in Eden remembered throughout history would damn the world for a sweet mouthful of fruit.

"Sol," Ky whispered in solitude. "You're too late. I'm already damned."

A knock came at the door of his office.

"Come in," Ky invited, to see Bernard step inside with a pile of reports clutched to his chest. Bernard's brow shot up as he approached the desk to a full cup of tea.

"Something wrong with that, Sir Kiske? Need a fresh cuppa?"

Ky reassured him with an apologetic smile.

"I've been lost in thought. This is just fine."

To prove it, he took a sip of the cooling, lukewarm drink and redoubled his smile from across the cup.

Bernard nodded to him with a grin of his own and he dropped his heavy load square in the center of Ky's desk.

"Well, then. Enjoy!"

Ky laughed softly, touching the sheet resting atop the pile and turning his mind toward his work.

"Of course, Bernard. How could I not?"

His first lie in recent memory. Until last week, Ky would have said the IPF was his life. While breaking Ky's heart, Sol unwittingly illuminated that however resilient to change the Corrupted Flame himself remained and how little he expected of Ky, Ky Kiske possessed the power to recreate himself.

If the path to his future lay in casting his lot with Gears and pursuing a truth that condemned those who drew near it, Ky little knew what he might ultimately become.


End file.
